The testing of semiconductor wafers and other types of integrated circuits (ICs), collectively known as devices under test (DUTs), needs to keep pace with technological advances. Each IC has to be individually tested, typically before dicing, in order to ensure that it is functioning properly. The demand for testing products is driven by considerations of new chip designs and higher volumes.
In particular, chips are getting smaller and they have more tightly spaced contact pads. The pads are no longer located about the circuit perimeter, but in some designs may be found within the area occupied by the circuit itself. As a result, the spacing or pitch of probe arrays required to establish electrical contact with the pads or bumps is decreasing. In addition, the requirements on planarity are increasing.
Some of the problems associated with small pitch of contact pads and their arrangement in a dense two-dimensional array are addressed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,881,974 to Wood et al. teaches to arrange probes in a probe card that has a substrate with a plurality of blind holes on a front face. The holes are filled with a metal to establish electrical contact for testing purposes and have closed bottoms spaced from a back of the substrate. Another approach is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,586,955 and U.S. Published Application No. 2002/0000815 both to Fjelstad et al. where probe cards include a layer of dielectric material provided with a plurality of cavities on a substrate. The dielectric material separates the fusible conductive material that is used to form the probe contacts. Both approaches provide ways to arrange probes that can address pads in a dense array.
In an approach that employs a housing for holding the individual probes, U.S. Pat. No. 6,566,898 to Theissen et al. teach an improved vertical pin probing device that has upper and lower spacers made of Invar. The spacers have a thin sheet of silicon nitride ceramic material held in a window in the spacer by an adhesive. The sheets of silicon nitride have laser-drilled matching patterns of holes supporting the probe pins and insulating them from the housing. The probes held in the holes can be arranged to address pads in a dense array.
Unfortunately, merely providing a geometry or method of holding probes that can address a dense array of pads is not sufficient. It is also important to ensure that the probes have suitable mechanical resilience and compliance properties. One way of addressing these mechanical issues is discussed, for example, in U.S. Published Application No. 2002/0117330 to Eldridge et al. This reference teaches structures that have improved resilience or compliance because the wire used for contact is overcoated with at least one layer of a material chosen for its structural resiliency or compliance characteristics. The probes have springy shapes and are attached to a substrate in, e.g., a probe card.
Although the prior art solutions individually address some of the problems, there is no apparatus or method that combines the requisite characteristics in a single probe card or testing apparatus. Specifically, what is needed is an electrical testing apparatus that can address densely packed pads or bumps with probes that are held securely while offering requisite mechanical properties such as resilience, compliance and reliable scrub motion to remove oxide from the pads or bumps.